Would you allow evolutionists to teach Sunday School?

sigh...

That everything observed must have a naturalistic explanation... or even that the naturalistic explanation is to be preferred over the supernatural when the Bible asserts the supernatural.

 

What is not above my level is a direct answer.

Was this observed or speculated (with no particular negative connotation for speculate intended)? Was this observed or an interpretation of what was observed?

It goes back to the premise again UT. If your assumption is that the evidence will support naturalistic evolution then your interpretations will be colored that way.

 

So this data could very well support evolution or my contention that all genetic variablity has descended from the original set of creatures that God made directly, right?

I am not asking you which is more reasonable or proven. I am only asking that you acknowledge the possibilities.

 

Not at all.

The orbit of the earth is observable, provable.

The assumption that everything must have a naturalistic explanation is an unproven, unprovable philosophical assumption.

 

Of course it does. You don't have to agree with me to acknowledge a possibility. Evolution does not agree with a literal interpretation of scripture and the scriptures in question give no indication of being anything but a record of history. This is important because these weren't stories passed down from Adam to Moses. They became written scripture after Moses spent time directly in the presence of God receiving revelation.

Evolution does not have a prime cause. See the article I cited. Even non-Christians see this dilemna of logic.

Please show where what I propose violates logic, scripture, or the evidence even that you provided in those three examples.

 

Not at all.

The orbit of the earth is observable, provable.

The assumption that everything must have a naturalistic explanation is an unproven, unprovable philosophical assumption. </font>[/QUOTE]You misrepresent the options. Just because the evidence suggests evolution occurred it does not follow that everything must have a naturalistic explanation. Nor is it fair for you to keep saying that is the position of a christian evolutionist.

 

You have expressed a misunderstanding of the evolution theory. The evolution theory is not that DNA expresses "dormant capabilities" under pressure - not at all!

Instead, the DNA inheritance accumulates completely random mutations over time. Some of them are harmful and some of them are neutral. Those that are harmful, generation after generation, tend to be eliminated. Those that are beneficial QUITE BY ACCIDENT - they get preserved by the very fact they are beneficial.

It is NOT A MATTER OF DORMANT CAPABILITY - it is a matter of new coding.

The matter of the worth or harm of the genetic mutations is decided in the difference it makes in the ability of those who get them to reproduce.

 

First off, I am still waiting for how you explain all of the whale data that we see. I just do not know how you could possibly do so. Maybe you do not either and that is why you evade the question. But it must be asked.

If whales were recently created, either as is or in the form of a handful of whale "master" "kinds," then why do we observe the fossil evidence that shows their descent from a land dwelling, even toed, hooved animal? Why does genetic testing against a wide variety of animals confirm that whales are most closely related to today's even toed hooved animals? (Before you yell common designer, outline what makes you think that the whales should be most closely related to deer and camels and hippos. If I were an honest YECer, and I wanted to say that a designer would use similar DNA for physically similar animals, then I could not in good consciencous asert that it should be deer and camels. I would have to say something like seals. And that is not the actual case.) Why are there oxygen isotope levels that match what the fossils tell us about where the various whale ancestors lived? Why to whales have genetic vestiges of the genes used by land mammals for a sense of smell? Why do whales have vestiges of hind legs? Why do whales have a vestigal developmental stage where they have hind limb buds? Why are some whales born with atavistic hind legs?

 

"You're being evasive.

Was the actual process observed or recreated..."

This is getting way off topic. Drosophila is the type of fruit fly used in many types of genetic studies for a variety of reasons. If you want to have all your questions answered, then you should go read the paper. Your local university library should carry Nature.

http://www.nature.com/cgi-taf/DynaPage.taf?file=/nature/journal/v396/n6711/abs/396572a0_fs.html&dynoptions=doi1103116204

Suffice it to say that Drosophila is a very well studied species. The new gene performs the new function oulined above for you. We get a new gene and a new function. That is new information. If you read even the abstract you will see that the real world operates in a much more complicated fashion than the types of questions you ask envision.

From the abstract. "The pattern of genetic variation across the genome of Drosophila melanogaster is consistent with the occurrence of frequent 'selective sweeps', in which new favourable mutations become incorporated into the species so quickly that linked alleles can 'hitchhike' and also become fixed. Because of the hitchhiking of linked genes, it is generally difficult to identify the target of any putative selective sweep."

Now what this tells my non-biological mind is that when you get an individual with a certain selective gene, that it also will often have other new genes that may or may not confer an advantage. As the new gene sweeps through the population and becomes fixed, these other new genes tag along for the ride and also become fixed. With several new genes, it becomes dificult to sort out which one was the catalyst for the change and which simply took advantage of the other's success.

 

"I mean that you have not demonstrated that the adaptation cited was not programmed into the subject by its parents. You have not demonstrated that any of its ancestors were not likewise genetically capable of this adaptation.

For your contention to hold water, this genetic adjustment would have to be a random occurrence in no way the result of encoding already present that happened to meet the right environmental circumstances."

You just do not make sense. In each of these cases, it is possible to tell where the new gene came from. The genome is not just a long sequence broken into individual genes every so often. There are all sorts of things in there that can serve as markers. Genes are not usually continuous, they are scattered and broken into bits and are only brought together at the end into a long strand making one gene. There are bits of code that tell the cells machinery what is what.

We can use all these markers to tell what has happened. Look back at the first example. Not only was a section of DNA duplicated and then mutated to form a new gene, from all the markers and intervening "junk" and such, they can tll that this stretch of DNA has been duplicated 10 times. Also, for this particular new gene, the mutation occured in such a way that what used to be an intron became an extron and what once was an extron became an intron.

The DNA leaves its own trail of what happened. You hypothized genetic rich ancestor would have had its DNA arranged to look like it was the process of evolution. Why?

 

"That everything observed must have a naturalistic explanation... or even that the naturalistic explanation is to be preferred over the supernatural when the Bible asserts the supernatural. "

I am not making any such. Things can have either kind of explanation. I am looking for what is the most parsimonious for a given situation. In the case of the current diversity of live on earth, the explanation of common descent is the most parsimonious. To invoke the supernatural is to open the floor to questions of why life was made to look like it was the result of an evolutionary process and why life contains such designs that are at odds with what an intelligent designer would be expected to do. For example, the whale data. Why would an intelligent designer give whales non-functioning versions of olfactory genes? Why would such a designer use a gevelopmental program the same as that used for land animals, making little legs that then have to be reabsorbed? Why would such a designer give whales latent genes for legs such that occasionally one is born with legs?

 

"What is not above my level is a direct answer.

Was this observed or speculated (with no particular negative connotation for speculate intended)? Was this observed or an interpretation of what was observed?"

It is above the level of this discussion and getting way off topic to start discussing all of the genetic markers that let you know what has happened. If you want to get into that level of detail, then you may need to go talk to a biologists at your local university. I am not qualified to try and explain that kind of detail.

The short answer to your question is that the new gene was coopted by humans long enough ago to have spread throughout the population. How this can be traced is getting too deep for us.

 

"So this data could very well support evolution or my contention that all genetic variablity has descended from the original set of creatures that God made directly, right?"

No. There would not be such genetic variability.

Think about it this way. In your version, all animals went through a bottleneck at the flood. Worse, you suppose that the created kinds were above the level of species. So instead of even two of this particular monkey, there would have been two of some monkey "kind" that later speciated. There fore there could have only been two alleles from each for a total of four, tops, of each allele.

So, the possibility that there could have been diversity in the population that was then expressed differently as the population speciated is not possible because there would not have been such diversity. In addition, testing shows that even in a single species that there are many more than four variations for a given gene. You would then have to accept the generation of new genetic material and new information to explain this. This further weakens your case.

You other option would be that the master "kind" had a bunch of extra genes that then had only certain combinations expressed in the various species that resulted. Again, though, this goes against the data. Genetic testing of closely related species shows that the differences are changes in the actual coding genes and not in which genes are coding. If the data showed that routinely in what we consider to be closely related species that gene A was coding in this species while B was inhibited or mutated into a pseudogene while in species B this same trait was expressed by B while A was inhibited or mutated then you would have a point. But what we see in practice is variations on a given gene. Which is disallowed by your bottleneck.

So it cannot be used to support your assertion. In fact, it shows the opposite.

 

"Not at all.

The orbit of the earth is observable, provable.

The assumption that everything must have a naturalistic explanation is an unproven, unprovable philosophical assumption."

So does gravity control the orbit or do angels push the earth around the sun?

The key here is that common descent is the most parsimonious explanation for what we see. Anything else adds unneeded complexity and does not fit what we see as well.

The other key is that before Copernicus, many read the Bible as saying that the earth does not move just as vehemently as you say that evolution could not have occured. Just as there is now little doubt on the orbit of the earth, there is little doubt on the common descent of the species. The only question is how long will it take before everyone accepts the obvious.

 

"Evolution does not agree with a literal interpretation of scripture and the scriptures in question give no indication of being anything but a record of history."

An earth that orbits the sun does not agree with a literal interpretation of scripture and the scripture in question gives no indication of being figurative.

"Please show where what I propose violates logic, scripture, or the evidence even that you provided in those three examples."

You have no logic at this point to analyze. You have no evidence at this point to analyze. You merely make assertions which are at odds with what we observe. They are not logical or factual explanations. Go after the whale evidence when you get a chance and we will see.

As far as scriptural, there is no reason to suppose that it must be a literal six days for the rest to make sense. You are missing the forest for the trees.

 

In other words, you are not open to considering other ideas? You accept evolution's dogma and all other explanations are categorically false because they disagree with evolution? That is faith UT, not science. Only those explanations cloaked in mountains of speculative writings based a foundation of unproven philosophical assumptions can be considered reasonable to you? You have a habit of ignoring or waving off things that you don't want to deal with or might cause you to question evolution. That is sad for someone possessing such obvious intelligence.

I hope that you will revive your critical mind. If you don't want to consider other ideas, at least turn a sharp critical eye on to evolution and its premises.

Your own examples fit my overall outline every bit as much as they do yours if not better.

My premise is logical. It has a prime cause and does not violate anything we know to be true.

I have used your own evidence and interpretted it differently. I guess since you don't consider it my evidence you can ignore my interpretations.

You keep bringing up the whale. My overarching idea can account for it every bit as well as yours can... and in an almost identical fashion. I believe that the whale may very well have descended from an ancestor with back legs (although not necessarily so). This creature would have been more, not less, genetically capable of adaptation than current whales. Abilities the whale's ancestors once had to dwell on land have been lost though the coding to produce the back legs is not completely deleted.

My idea is manifestly scriptural.

 

"In other words, you are not open to considering other ideas?"

I am certainly open to other ideas. I just have failed to see any that make logical sense to this point. I have examined many, many YE ideas. Initially with a strong bias towards YE. In my opinion, they have been weighed and found wanting.

"You accept evolution's dogma and all other explanations are categorically false because they disagree with evolution?"

They fail because they fail to explain what we see. I would be open to any idea. In fact, I would rather someone provide a framework that explain what we see in terms of a young earth. It would be simpler. But the more such ideas I see, the worse opinion of them I have due to their weaknesses.

"Your own examples fit my overall outline every bit as much as they do yours if not better."

Nope. Just look at your example of a diverse original set of kinds that speciates. This is incompatible with what we see. We see many more versions of the various alleles than it would allow and we see differences in psecies being caused by these variations and not because each gets a different set of functioning alleles.

"You keep bringing up the whale. My overarching idea can account for it every bit as well as yours can... and in an almost identical fashion. I believe that the whale may very well have descended from an ancestor with back legs (although not necessarily so). This creature would have been more, not less, genetically capable of adaptation than current whales. Abilities the whale's ancestors once had to dwell on land have been lost though the coding to produce the back legs is not completely deleted."

Well if you accept that whales once lived on land, then we are in the same boat except that you accept much more rapid change that I would ever accept.

But what happens when I extend this back a bit. From the land dwelling whales I could tie back to the ancestor of all even toed ungulates. So then whales and pigs and hippos and camels and deer are all one kind?!?

A little further and we can tie the even and odd toed ungulates. So horses and rhinos are now the same "kind" as whales and deer?!?

What about when I trace back to the first placental mammal? Are all placnetal mammals one kind?

How about the very detailed transitional series between reptiles and mammals? If is very rich and detailed. It even has some creatures with a double jaw using both the reptile jaw and the mammal jaw and then descendants that show the reptile jaw becoming our ear bones. Ontogeny also shows that the same bones in a developing reptile that become a jaw become ears in a mammal. So all mammals and reptiles are one "kind?"

Then we'll trace the reptiles back to the amphibians. Then the amphibians back to the lobe finned fish. There are some very nice fossils there. So now are all lobe finned fish, amphibains, reptiles, birds, and mammals all one "kind!?!"

How far back to I have to trace these things before you say that it must have been a different "kind?" What about when I point to that vestigal muscle that you have for pulling your arm forwatd when it was aleg? What about those vestigal muscles you have for wiggling your ears?

For the things I have harped on about the whales, we can tie other life together. Are chickens and alligotors the same "kind?" Well you better look at some of the genetic data. Common descent shows that they are both archosaurs and should be fairly closely related. We can go through fossil data and genetic data and pseudogenes and vestiges and ontogeny for all of life like can be done ofr the whales. You either have to start drawing arbitrary lines without any logical or factual reasons or you just have to start ignoring data.

It is quite convincing and I would be happy to turn this into a conversation and step through some of it. But I don't really think you're open to such, so...

 

Bob, tell us who Berlinski is.

I believe he is a YEer and I find it a misrepresentation to quote a YE sourse as if it is some sort of admission by a biologist of some sort of weakness in evolution.